


Looking for the Troll

by mechanonymouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Increased blood discrimination, Suicide, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29176485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanonymouse/pseuds/mechanonymouse
Summary: A take on a world with more extreme discrimination based on bloodWhy couldn't Weasley fight his own battles? Oh yeah, poor little Pureblood, baby brother is barely more than a Squib who needs his real wizard, elder brothers to fight for him. She sneered and stepped out to face whatever the twins had in store for her to see a mountain troll.
Kudos: 2





	Looking for the Troll

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this is 2014 in the midst of a serious depressive episode, and it shows. I've cleaned and brighten it up a bit but this still a fairly unremitting grind of angst that ends with a glossed over happy ending.
> 
> Hermione is a seriously unreliable narrator, she is correct in her assessment of the amount of discrimination she faces due to her parentage but her judgement on other people's character is dubious at best.
> 
> The suicide isn't Hermione but it is a major canon character and finding the body is briefly described.

Hermione, and her parents, were very happy when Professor McGonagall hand delivered her Hogwarts letter. Finally, a reason for all of the weirdness that followed Hermione around. Finally, somewhere she would fit in.

The first hint that that would not be so came when she and her parents went to Diagon Alley to get her school books and robes. Small slights followed them through the alley.

The exchange rate was steep, the additional charges levied by the Ministry teller were extreme, and her parents were not permitted within Gringotts to exchange money with the Goblins. She couldn’t open an account on her own until she was an adult, and without an account was not permitted to manage her own finances.

The material used for her robes was noticeably poorer quality and she was able only to buy the complete kit, including Wizarding style underwear in coarse linen and unfitted to her form, while Wizarding families shopping were permitted to break the order down in to separate higher quality items.

The same was true at the Apothecary and buying her telescope for Astronomy. Only at Flourish and Blotts could she purchase more than a shoddy version of the standard kit. There, her parents let her spend some of her Birthday money on background reading.

The background reading made it more clear than the visit to Diagon Alley that she was no more welcome here than she was in the Muggle world. The boy hero defeated the Dark Lord the history books said, only naming his father. If these were Muggle books she would have thought it to be a patriarchal bias but these books contained almost as many witches as wizards. Only a discomforted mention that their boy hero was Half-Blood explained it. No Muggleborns in these books, no visible Muggleborns anywhere.

The trip to Kings Cross with her parents confirmed her suppositions, the train made it even clearer.

She begged the Hat, not Slytherin and got Gryffindor which was probably better but their reaction to a too smart Mudblood had her quickly learning the more common phrase and to stoically suffer pain curses.

Their boy hero took the credit for his Mudblood mother defeating the Dark Lord and the Wizarding Britain continued the prejudices that spawned the Dark Lord and his supporters.

* * *

"It's Wingardium Levi-ooh-sa." Hermione said frustrated as Weasley set their feather on fire. "Make the o nice and long." And please don't poke the feather again she thought instinctively moving away from the hot headed boy.

"You try then if you're so clever." Weasley said thrusting the charred feather at her.

With a sigh Hermione rolled up her sleeves and debated which would be worse showing up the arrogant, poor little Pureblood by succeeding where he hadn't or failing and proving herself a useless Mudblood.With a slight shrug of her shoulders she figured both outcomes were about the same and clearly enunciated, her wand flicking in the exact motion demonstrated by Professor Flitwick. Odd, she could already feel how that would modify as she used it to become less textbook and more unique to her. The charred feather floated gracefully into the air, little bits of it falling away as it rose.

"Look, Miss Granger's done it." Flitwick called out, "5 points to Gryffindor."

The boy next to her flushed almost purple. Great she hadn't just privately shown him up she had publicly humiliated him. This lesson was going to hurt.

Around her the class was packing up chattering about the Halloween feast. Maybe if she could hide until after they would forget. She brushed past Weasley and his sidekick Potter vaguely hearing Weasley complain that she was a nightmare with no friends, well uppity Mudbloods are freaks in either world she thought viciously. If he was going to keep that up, it might be better to disappear until breakfast tomorrow. Patil and Brown would makes sure the Prefects remembered to educate the Mudblood.

She slipped into one of the lesser used girls toilets and the cleanest cubical. She was missing Transfiguration which would barely be noticed by McGonagall and even if she did notice she wouldn't have time to do anything. Hermione was fairly certain if you planned carefully, and made sure you didn't miss Snape's class, a Gryffindor could be gone a week before anyone noticed and even then it would like only be by Snape. She thought Sprout and Flitwick might notice one of their favourite Pureblood princes and princesses in two weeks, their favoured Half-Bloods in three but a Mudblood, would they ever notice or care? She knew McGonagall wouldn't.

She blinked hard to prevent the tears welling up her eyes from falling and opened the Transfiguration textbook. She thought she could review the first year material well enough to write her roommates' essays and finish off studying the third year material before the feast was over.

Her wand was in hand and she was working through the complexities of insect to mammal transformation with an unfortunate beetle she'd found climbing the wall when a foul smell filled the toilet.Groaning she shoved the book back into her bag and hoped it wouldn't get damaged, Madame Prince would ban her from the library if she brought back another damaged book.

Why couldn't Weasley fight his own battles? Oh yeah, poor little Pureblood, baby brother is barely more than a Squib who needs his real wizard, elder brothers to fight for him. She sneered and stepped out to face whatever the twins had in store for her to see a mountain troll.

Hysterically she thought, so much for being the safest place in the world as the troll brought his club down towards her.

She lost track of what was happening. She remembers trying cast anything that might have helped, pain and a cold angry voice.

She woke up in the infirmary, her body aching and her mouth tasting of potions. When she reached automatically for her wand it wasn't there beside her. Her movements gained Madame Pomfrey's attention and a potion was pressed against her unwilling mouth by rough hands until she swallows.

The next time she woke up, she was surrounded, Madame Pomfrey, Professors Snape and McGonagall and the Headmaster stood round her bed. She had barely opened her eyes and they were already interrogating her.

"Why did you go looking for the troll, Miss Granger?" The Headmaster asked in a tone of deep disappointment. If she believed he realised she existed prior to being injured it might have worked but instead it made her want to roll her eyes.

She made an effort to look more confused than she was. Oh, she knew why they thought she went looking for the troll; blame the Mudblood in the way that would make the House look blameless. A time honoured Gryffindor tradition. She waited to find out what the punishment would be. Better not to say anything until she heard what the House line was.

"There's no point denying it. We know you did. You were in the Hall with your yearmates when Percy Weasley lead the rest of Gryffindor to safety. Your roommates tell us they lost track of you on the second floor." Professor McGonagall said through pursed lips.

So her word against the rest of the year, probably not a good idea to suggest McGonagall check her own class register for proof. There was nothing she could say, the truth would be seen as a outright lie and any reason would just make her look worse but maybe, "I tripped,” she said waiting a beat to see their reactions. "By the time I'd regained my feet I was alone on the second floor. I didn't want to walk to the common room on my own. I saw the toilet and thought it might be enough to keep me safe until the teachers dealt with the troll." She was rather pleased with her fabrication.

"You expect me to believe your House left you alone on the ground with a troll in the castle." Professor McGonagall asked eyebrows high on her forehead.

She hadn’t expect McGonagall to believe but she was one of four, one who of whom visibly softened as Hermione gave her explanation and Snape’s glower looked less personal. She didn’t know the Headmaster well enough to be certain but he seemed less irate.

"It was chaos. I pulled myself away until I could stand so I didn't get stood on or bring anyone else down, I don't think anyone would have noticed someone not being there until they got to the common room." She said and breathed a sigh of relief as the Headmaster smiled and the Nurse softened completely. McGonagall was still frowning but she knew she'd lost.

"You are incredibly lucky Miss Granger." The headmaster said with a benevolent smile. "There will be no punishment for your accident and I believe Madam Pomfrey will soon be happy to release you from the hospital wing."

"On a reduced schedule if you continue healing." Madam Pomfrey said but her manner was that of the kindly nurse again. Relieved Hermione let her exhausted body slip off to sleep.

* * *

Soon turned out to be a month later with two canes to let her walk and a reduced schedule to mean no Herbology, Astronomy or Potions for another month. Unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey's edict that she limit her walking didn't extend to the Gryffindor tower.

She had to climb the seven flight of stars to the tower and a further three to her dorm twice a day which left her sick, pale and shaky. Gryffindor tower wasn’t exactly a relaxing place to feel so weak. McGonagall was forced to apply only a nominal punishment, twenty points from the House and a perfunctory talk but the House still exacted revenge. On her first night out of the hospital wing Hermione was stuck to a wall and subjected to twenty pain curses.

When she finally wrenched herself from the ground and managed to pull herself up the three flights of stairs to the dorm she found her bed had been removed. A pile of blankets lay under a desk piled with homework, her trunk lay open next to it and where her bed had been was a large sofa.

Grinning Brown said, "Don't you think the room looks so much better."

She spun letting Hermione see her favourite dress draped over Patil's bed and her jewellery box on Brown's bedside table. Grimly, Hermione realised that there was no point fighting. It was two Purebloods, and the rest of the House if they were so incompetent, against one exhausted Mudblood.

"Well hurry up." Brown pointed at the desk, "some of that's due tomorrow."

Hermione didn’t cry. She did the homework on the desk in silence and didn't complain when they turned out the lights halfway through. In the half light, from her wand and the moon, she searched her trunk. They left all her school robes, the ugliest of her street clothes and all her school stuff untouched. The sheets smelt rancid and she couldn't make herself sleep on them or feel safe enough to sleep. Instead she awkwardly changed and hobbling, her shattered hips aching from sitting on the cold wood chair, she slipped out of Gryffindor tower.

Over the next few months she learnt cleaning spells, the few self healing spells the Wizarding world had and as her quiet anger grew curses. She learnt to disappear.

Her roommates noticed her absence if the homework the placed on 'her' desk wasn't completed on time but that didn't mean she had to be there while they were awake. She slipped into the room after curfew everyday picked up the new homework and left the completed homework.

An complete absence of five weeks would be noticed by McGonagall, three weeks for Flitwick, Sprout and Sinestra and two consecutive lessons for Snape. No absence would ever be noticed by Binns or Quirrell.

She learnt to never be noticed. She never raised her to answer a question nor did she try any spell in class before four others had succeeded. When she got her results at the end of the year she smirked to see she was one of the top ten students, just. Enough to satisfy her need to prove herself to authority figures, but not enough to be noticed.

* * *

She was a freak at home too. Thankfully she no longer needed her canes to walk and her parents didn't notice that she was sloweror that her face creased with pain on cold days. She slipped outside their notice automatically. She didn't think they realised that they let her go to London on her own to collect her books or to catch the train.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher assigned seven expensive novels for textbooks. She brought two interesting looking Defence Against the Dark Arts books, one on curses and one on healing. If she never arrived he couldn't notice she was missing.

There was a new Weasley. She was as arrogant as her brothers with an acute crush on Potter. The only interesting thing about the girl was how she disappeared and what she did while gone. Hermione saw the little princess killing roosters with her bare hands and painting Slytherin slogans on the walls in rooster blood mixed with red paint. She stole an annoying first year boy's camera, removed the flash and documented the littlest Weasley's actions. She was sure that the photos would come in handy at some point.

Flitch's cat was petrified and a similar message painted on the wall.Hermione debated telling someone but who would she tell and who would believe a little Pureblood princess of the light was capable of such. Was the little princess even capable of it? Hermione couldn’t have but Pureblood sgot an earlier start.

She read and researched, secreted in her corner of the castle. She learnt how to ward, not just alarm spells but a ward that kept out anything meaning to harm her. Hogwarts doesn’t allow wards that cause harm to be applied by students and Hermione didn’t care to work her way around that. Obscuring her and preventing harm from coming to her was sufficient for her purposes.

First one student, a Hufflepuff she'd never spoken to, then another, the annoying first year, were petrified.

It took her far too long. but she put it together. The chamber of secrets hidden by a famous Parseltongue contained a Basilisk and the youngest Weasley was letting it out. Writing, in carefully different handwriting, a clear reasoning for the Basilisk and including copies of her photos of Weasley, Hermione tied the bundle with string and slipped it under the door of Snape's office early one morning.

The girl was gone by evening and the Weasley boys and Potter were ready to boil over at any second. She fell foul of the twins that evening and Potter and Weasley after Herbology. The perfect prefect practiced his pain curses on her when he handed out sign up sheets for third year electives.

She choose Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Muggle Studies on the basis no one else in Gryffindor was taking them.

Students were sent home early for Easter so the castle could be taken to pieces and Basilisk dealt with. The Weasley girl didn't return before the end of term.

Idly, Hermione wondered what would happen to people sitting OWLs and NEWTs this year. The internal end of year tests were set early and the next Easter holiday curtailed by the same amount to make up work not covered.

She was in the top ten again but only just. She wondered how teachers like McGonagall who only saw her once a month could justify the marks they gave her but she didn't really care. She didn't sleep in the Gryffindor dorm at all or store her trunk there and no one found her room.

* * *

Her parents barely noticed her. They went away on holiday to France for two weeks, forgetting they didn't plan for her to come. She guilted them in to giving her £500 and disappeared in to Knockturn Alley.

She was venturing into Diagon Alley for the few school things she couldn't get on Knockturn Alley when Potter and the Weasleys arrived to buy their things. She caught the ugly cat running after Weasley and grinned. It was perfect and her buying it made Weasley howl with rage and almost forget himself and attack her in the street. Wandering off whistling as a nearby auror has a firm talk with him made her year, or at least her month.

The littlest Weasley returned as a first year again, her freckles look like flecks of dirt against her milk white skin and she flinched when ever anyone talked too loud or moved suddenly. Hermione couldn't work up any sympathy when she became the new target of Gryffindor's tender mercies, just kept her head down as McGonagall blamed the girl as she once blamed Hermione.

Ancient runes and Arithmancy were rather boring, she studied the third year syllabus in first year apparently but the fifth year books she brought herself were interesting. Muggle studies was fascinating, she took careful notes and thought I could kill them all.

The murderer who broke out prison was apparently after Potter which was why the castle was guarded by the same creatures Black escaped from. She tried to teach herself the Patronus charm and was fairly certain it would work if she could find a happy enough memory but happy memories were never her forte. She learnt to think of cold revenge when the dementors were near and to hope that Black would hurry up and kill Potter or die trying.

By the end of the year Black was kissed, too incompetent to kill Potter, Potter nearly so, which was according to Dumbledore unacceptable but a hundred nameless students was fine, and this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher exposed as a werewolf. Potter and Weasley were uncharacteristically withdrawn. They scowled at Snape like he killed their pet. Which was possible, Weasley's rat was missing but she had assumed Crookshanks had managed to eat him.

Hermione realised she hadn't spoken to anyone from Gryffindor this year and thought only four more years to go.

* * *

She was still ranked number nine in the year and not quite sure what to make of the requirement for dress robes this year.

Last summer she found a book on self entering for standard Wizarding tests and, fairly certain her parents wouldn’t realise what they were signing, entered herself for History of Magic, Astronomy, Muggle Studies and Transfiguration. She sat them the first week of summer at the Ministry and thought she’d passed barely, but a pass is all she wanted from Astronomy and History of Magic. Getting up to the Astronomy Tower made her hips ache too much to concentrate and History of Magic with Binns was a waste of any literate student’s time.

The results came to her and Hogwarts on the same day. The Acceptable in Astronomy was enough to be done as were the Exceeds Expectations in History of Magic and Muggle Studies but she wished she could have seen McGonagall's face at the Outstanding in Transfiguration. She booked for the rest of her OWLs the same day and cut down her estimate to three more years to go.

Dumbledore announced the Triwizard tournament, which explained the dress robes, and the age limit. Hermione wondered how he planed to enforce it and when she saw the ineffectual age line quietly dismantled it. If her fellow students wanted to kill themselves in the vain pursuit of glory, why stop them?

McGonagall's face looked like she'd been sucking an lemon when she handed Hermione her schedule. She was in sixth year Transfiguration and Muggle Studies but had been allowed to drop Astronomy, which would be a relief to her aching hips, and History of Magic. The Gryffindors glowered at her first Transfiguration lesson but she appeared comfortably in the middle of the class and didn't draw attention to herself.

Potter's name came out of the cup, which wasn't a surprise. Everything happened to Potter and the rules to did apply to the infant Dark Lord destroyer.

The announcement was greeted with hatred by the rest of the school and treated by Dumbledore and McGonagall like his position was his due. The Gryffindors crowed and ignored Diggory’s selection as a champion.

Hermione bought a badge off a dreamy blonde Ravenclaw that says _'Support Cedric Diggory, The Hogwarts Champion'_ and changed itto _'Support Delacour, Diggory and Krum, The Triwizard Champions'_ with a tap. They were worn by everyone outside Gryffindor who didn't have an active grudge against Potter, Malfoy sold an alternative declaring _'Potter Stinks'_ for those who needed to declare their position on Potter.

Weasley stopped talking to Potter and Potter made a fool of himself in the first task but completed it. After which he and Weasley were back to being an inseparable duo.

Hermione avoided the library all year and Krum and his giggling fan club. She wasn’t the only person pushed out of the library, some of her hiding spaces were encroached on by the dreamy Ravenclaw, Luna. They were companionable in a quiet way and neither of them objected to the other's presence.

Hermione and Luna skipped the Ball, instead spending the evening with a warm fire and a good book in an unused room off a quiet corridor. It became a regular place for them to meet.

Weasley was Potter's hostage for the second task which triggered an interesting article from a gossip reporter, Rita Skeeter, and a howler to Weasley. Hermione hadn't noticed that as one of the hang ups of the Wizarding world but it didn't surprise her. It tore Potter and Weasley's friendship apart again and Potter went on an aggressive play to prove he liked girls. The watching staff and students don’t seem to ask how much the girls liked him.

Potter came back after the third task shaking like he'd been exposed to the cruciatus curse, she should know, and declaring Voldemort back. She wasn't sure she believes him about resurrected dark lords but she did that someone was restarting his legacy and accelerated her plan to leave Hogwarts.

* * *

At Easter, Hermione entered herself for the Transfiguration NEWT and noted she won't be underage if she passes it.

There was nothing in the news that suggested a return of the Dark Lord, there were unexplained disappearances all last year that fitted the pattern but not this summer. Instead she noticed the laws that Malfoy and his ilk were pushing through the Wizengamot. She started researching the US and Australia.

To her relief, she passed everything with Exceeds Expectations or Outstandings.

On her return to Hogwarts, McGonagall firmly suggests that she retain everything as she had already dropped History of Magic and Astronomy. She had hoped to drop Potions and Herbology but if she felt comfortable with the other classes she could enter herself for summer anyway and accept lower marks for them.

The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was a Ministry stooge who noticed any missing attendance. Hermione was grateful not to be in Potter's class. Potter started a ridiculous Defence Against the Dark Arts group that called itself _'Dumbledore's Army’._ She wondered what he thought he was playing at.

The Weasleys left early for Christmas and their father's death was reported in the Prophet the next day. The twins didn't return which was a relief to most people, Weasley was on a hair trigger serving detention with Umbridge every night, the littlest Weasley looked if possible paler, thinner and more scared than she did before Christmas, and Potter alternated between guilty silence and violent temper tantrums that left people near him needing the infirmary.

Voldemort revealed himself in the Ministry by destroying the Department of Mysteries and killing the Minister of Magic.

The Weasley girl disappeared that day.

Hermione found her hanging in a deserted area of the castle a week later, it wasn't a pretty sight or smell. It was even less pretty two weeks later when the girl was noticed missing, after Snape's increasingly strident complaints had been ignored for three weeks. Snape caught Hermione and Luna and made them show him her body. He never mentioned them. The official story was that Snape noticed the smell but the school, excepting Gryffindor, noticed that Dumbledore and McGonagall were still saying she was fine and doing nothing while Snape was searching.

* * *

The week term ended, Hermione took her NEWTs. The wait for her results was more anxious than any prior with the interim Minister of Magic facilitating between attempting to appease Voldemort and to maintain the status quo.

It was with great relief that she received her results in July. She had passed everything as well as she had wanted except for Potions. The Acceptable was disappointing especially given her respect for their Potion Master. She graduated, accepted her offered place at the University of Sydney, and left the country keeping in contact only with Luna. Deep in her studies she paid little attention to the goings on in Britain only vaguely noticing that Snape had died a war hero.

Two years after the war ended, she was joined in Australia, and at the University of Sydney, by Luna. They don’t talk about England or Hogwarts after Luna left, Hermione quietly accepted that Luna had as few good memories as she did.


End file.
